Cataclysmic Silence
by verita dea
Summary: Seible has had a futuretelling, one that gives her the power to change the outcome of Elspeth's quest and all their lives forever. Please read the AN in my profile


Like silence, futuretellers are often misjudged. Maryon told me that. Sometimes, I secretly agreed with those who condemned us, after all, how could one have a true vision of an event to occur and keep the dangerous details from those it affected? Maryon had once had a futuretelling about a boy named Jik. She knew he was to die, and yet, she hadn't said anything until his demise had already occurred. At the time, when I was but a child and I knew what she had done, I had berated her. How could she keep that information to herself? She could've saved the boy if she'd just revealed her vision. She shook her head at me, and said that one day I'd understand.

I never thought I would. Before I had come to Obernewtyn, I had lived with my Uncle. He had strong morals and taught me that if I had the chance to change the course of an event, to, say, save a life, then I should take it. My chance for that came several years after that futuretelling about Jik. My chance had come after the civil war, when it seemed the world had been set right again. My chance had not really been a chance at all.

I had been sitting by a window in the Futureteller Wing, humming to myself as I embroidered a cloth to add to the ever growing dreamscape tapestry. We were the silent guild; each of us were absorbed in our own thoughts, some of us were in deep trances. There was the occasional comment or two exchanged, but apart from that, there was nothing in particular going on. I looked down at my lap and frowned. Instead of Rushton, the Master of Obernewtyn, I had unwittingly embroidered a dog. It wasn't even that handsome a beast; deformed and pitiful as it was. I set to unpicking the thing, when I felt a tug at my mind. Instantly, I knew I was falling into a trance.

At first, it was just a barrage of noises and images; birds with bright red plumage flying overhead, schreeching a warning, an urgent message. Then there was a woman with vibrant blue eyes, standing before a multitude of people, her voice ringing out like a clarion call. More images flitted in my mind, too fast to interpret, until finally, they stopped and there was nothing but darkness.

I could tell this was the important part of my vision, whatever it was. I stood on black soil, the sky was tinted an unnatural purple, scattered trees drooped in grotesque shapes, their branches tangled. There was an overwhelming sense of cold, of something lurking. A peculiar feeling hung over the place, a feeling of utter stillness, a feeling of death. My movements were slow and subtle, but they rippled through the air like screams. I stared around me at the endless wasteland.

The Blacklands.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them, I was no longer alone. There were two people; a rather handsome man with a look of madness in his eye, and the Guildmistress of the Farseekers. I was suddenly in the middle of a muted battle, messages passed between the two minds, so fast I could not catch them. I strained to hear sound, to hear what they might be saying, but all was silent. I drew closer, then I saw the man make a sharp movement. Something exploded, soundlessly, effortlessly, fatally. There was a moment of intense heat, my skin felt as though it was being torn off and I screamed. Amidst the pain, there was a part of my mind that registered something, _someone_ trying to contain the explosion.

I slowly rose to consciousness. As I did, I began drawing my conclusions. Something would happen, not in the near future, perhaps in a decades' time. It involved the Blacklands, a madman and the death of the Guildmistress.

Fully awake, I looked around me and found that everyone was staring. Maryon was by my side, offering a cup with water. I drank and inhaled deeply. I knew everyone was anticipating an explanation, I had probably screamed or chanted during the vision.

"I had a vision of the Guildmistress of the Farseekers." My voice came out as a whisper, despite the fact that all was quiet. There was the collective murmur of interest, people shuffled closer to listen. Futuretellings involving the Guildmistress were frequent and intriguing. I felt that we were all being sent a piece of a puzzle, that we were being shown flashes of something great to happen.

"She was in the Blacklands," I continued. "There was another person with her, a man-"

"That's quite enough Seible," Maryon interrupted. At a glance from the Guildmistress, everyone began to drift off lethargically. She took the glass from my hands and shook her head at my expression. "Sometimes it's best not to tell," she said.

I frowned. "But the Guildmistress will-"

"You've already revealed too much information."

I stared at her. "So you know? You've seen it all? And you won't do _anything_ about it?"

She looked at me for a long moment, then sighed. "Events will unfold as they must. We are only bidden to tell what will help these occurrences to pass"

"How are you supposed to know what to tell and what to keep secret?" I demanded.

Maryon replied simply. "Knowing when to speak and when to keep silent depends on what has been seen. We share only what will help the vision pass."

"But if a life is in the balance," I persisted, "why not take the chance to save it?"

"If that life is lost in the process of what happens for the greater good, then so be it," was her answer. "We are shown these visions so that the greater good might be acheived, Seible."

Her responses were less than satisfactory for me. "But what if we were sent these visions to prevent that death?"

"A Futureteller knows," her tone was now weary. I looked at her and saw that the foreknowledge of such events gave her discomfort. It was wrong of me to think that she did not care at all. Deciding that I had overstepped my station as a novice, I began to work on the dreamscape again, when I realised it was no longer in my hands.

"Diarmid has your dreamscape," Maryon said, as though she'd read my thoughts. "You dropped it when you went into your futuretelling. He's sitting in the corner yonder."

I left Maryon's side and approached the little boy who held my work in his hands. He was a solemn child; the grey eyes that were tinged green always seemed to be in a place other than the present. As I drew near, he met my gaze.

"You had a futuretelling about my mother," he observed.

"Yes I did," I said, feeling obliged to reply though he posed no question.

"I have futuretellings about my mother," he went on conversationally. "I've seen many things about her."

He began to trace the picture with his fingers, patting first the deformed dog, then wandering onto another section I hadn't been aware I had done. He stopped. "Is this the blacklands?"

"Yes," I replied. It was rumoured that Elspeth's children could sense things that others experienced after touching a certain objects that that person had handled. As his fingers lingered over the dark, forbidding Blacklands, I felt compelled to ask a question. "Do you see anything?"

It took him a moment to answer. "Nothing that I've not seen before."

"What do you mean?" I queried.

He took my hand and suddenly I was seeing things through his eyes.

_Purple clouds mushroomed in the air, blinding lights illuminated the area. I could not see a thing, I couldn't hear a thing over the explosions. I thought I would go mad with the sheer terror of it all, but slowly, it began to calm down.The sky was no longer an unnatural purple, but an ugly shade of brown. The ground was bare, not even the grotesque trees were present. The air was thick, hot and humid. At first, I thought that these were the Blacklands. But walking a little further, I could see rubble. The remnants of what had been Obernewtyn. There were corpses everywhere, beyond recognition were it not for the charred remains of clothing. All around, for what I knew was many miles, there was nothing. No settlement, no life. All was gone with that horrific eruption._

More images came then, different ones, but no less horrific. Burnings, torture, humans inflicting pain upon one another and all the creatures around them. Unable to bear it any longer, I pulled my hand away from Diarmid's.When I opened my eyes, he was staring back at me. In his gaze was a pain that sat ill on a face as young as his.

"Her ending is inevitable," he said softly, "but she embraces it knowing what will happen."

He then handed back the dreamscape and stood. "I need to go find my mother," he offered by way of explanation, then vanished out the door.

That night, I watched as Diarmid hovered around the Guildmistress like a little shadow. She was unaware of what she would be about to face, happy in her ignorance, revelling in the company of her family and friends. It was cruel, what would happen to her. It would be hard for those she'd leave behind. There were three of us in that room who knew what would happen, four if you included the guildmistress herself. But no one knew how soon it would be before she left. For it was on that night that Elspeth was called away by a dog, deformed and ugly. A dog, Diarmid would tell me later, whose name was Darga. It was on that night that Elspeth left to fulfil a quest, a prophecy made long before the Great White itself. It was on that night that she would begin a sacrifice for the rest of us, one which meant she would never return to Obernewtyn again.


End file.
